1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an original document image scanning and printing device having an image rotating function.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, to rotate an image by 90 degrees, a direction in which the image is written and a direction in which the image is retrieved changes. To carry out such a process, it is necessary to store the image once in memory. However, a large capacity of memory becomes necessary for storing the image. In an inexpensive device, to suppress an increase in the costs, there are many cases where the device only has minimum memory. There is a device having a memory that can only store an image of approximately one page for the rotation process.
Meanwhile, in an original document image scanning and printing device such as a facsimile machine or a multifunction peripheral that has a scanning function for scanning an image of an original document and a printing function for printing out the image, an improvement in the functions of the device is attempted even for an inexpensive device. For example, there exists an original scanning and printing device having a function for rotating an image by 90 degrees, that rotates the image scanned from an original document and prints out the image when necessary.
Furthermore, there exists a device that has a facsimile communication function and an input/output function in relation to a remote computer, and can execute a scanning function and a printing function in parallel with one another. In addition, in such a device, there exists a device that can carry out the rotation process when the scanning function has been executed or carry out the rotation process when the printing function has been executed.
However, as described above, in the device that can carry out the rotation process on an image of approximately one page, if the rotation process becomes necessary both for the scanning function and the printing function, the rotation process cannot be carried out at the same time. Therefore, conventionally, the rotation process was carried out preferentially on either the scanning function or the printing function that was executed first, then, until one of the scanning function or the printing function that was executed has been completed, the other function was suspended. Thus, for example, when the scanning process of the original document using the rotation process is attempted during the printing process accompanying the rotation process, a message such as “Please wait for a moment” or “During printing” is displayed, and the scanning process cannot be executed. As a result, it was necessary for a user to wait until the end of the printing process, thus making the operationality of the device low.